Chicago Magazine, June 27, 2018 — From epic game dinners (including ibex ham and juniper-soaked bear) to lobster palaces to revered railroad cuisine that took advantage of food available along the journey, Chicago chefs were pioneers long before the city was a food destination. Read the story.
Chicago Magazine website, May 17, 2018 — The ubiquitous plastic vessel has come a long way: from South Side immigrant inventors to big business in Lake Forest, a Toby Keith hit to syndicated TV specials starring its inventor’s wife—and now a galaxy far, far away. Read the story.
Chicago magazine, March 2017 — Read my Q&A with filmmaker Steve James, part of an issue on the theme “Why We Love Chicago.”
Photo: Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune
Chicago Magazine, October 2015 — Ina Pinkney can’t leave her house in Buena Park without being recognized. “There isn’t a time when somebody doesn’t say, ‘I miss your restaurant’?” she says. “Grocery store, Staples, the Apple Store—I mean, just anywhere I go.” As the owner of a bakery and three popular eateries over a span of 33 years, Pinkney became known simply as “Ina” to the countless customers she greeted each morning. Read the story.
Photo by Chris Strong
Chicago magazine, February 2015 — Go See Hogtown, a Murder Mystery in 1919 Chicago. Our 30-second review of the immersive movie, which screens this week at the Gene Siskel Film Center. Read my review in Chicago magazine.
Photo: 9:23 Films
Chicago magazine, February 2015 — Life Itself, Steve James’s tribute to Roger Ebert, comes out on DVD February 17, a good excuse to catch up on other great Chicago documentaries. Read more in Chicago magazine.
Photo: Kartemquin Films
Chicago magazine, October 2014 — As a graduate student at the Illinois Institute of Technology in the late 1970s, photographer Michael Abramson spent a lot of time in clubs with names like Perv’s House and Pepper’s Hideout… Read more — and see some of Abramson’s photos — in Chicago magazine.
Photo by Michael Abramson
Chicago magazine, August 2014 — Failed Dreams: Chicago’s transit history is littered with grand plans that never quite got off the ground. Read my story in Chicago magazine.
Chicago magazine, July 2014 — The movie critic became the star in Steve James’s adaptation of Ebert’s Life Itself memoir—a film that celebrated Ebert’s life, and unexpectedly showed its end. Read my story in Chicago magazine.
Photo by Anna Knott
Chicago magazine, February 24, 2014 — In 2008, before the release of Year One, Ramis talked about working with Bill Murray, filming in Chicago, and how religion shaped his “Buddish” philosophy. Read my interview in Chicago magazine.
Photo: Second City